Angry Birds 2 2.0.1 APK

Rovio has now made its latest casual game, Angry Birds 2, available worldwide for Android. These new series bring a few new objects to take advantage in the Angry Birds levels, as well as a new bird. There are also multi-stage levels, boss battles, and spells with super stunning graphics to play on your phone and tablet.

Much like the previous games in the Angry Birds series, this new entry in the franchise allows folks to fling the birds and try to wipe out the pigs with falling debris and explosions. Here's a list of its features:

• CHOOSE YOUR BIRD! - It’s the ultimate slingshot strategy – YOU choose which bird to fling next! “But that makes it easier, right?” WRONG! You’ll need to choose wisely if you’re going to stop those eggs from getting scrambled. Plus, destroy blocks to fill up the Destruct-O-Meter and earn extra birds!

• NEW MULTI-STAGE LEVELS! - You’ve never seen Piggy Island like this – jaw-droppingly stunning levels brimming with exotic plants, quirky details and plenty of peril. And because those naughty porkies are building their teetering towers right under your beak, many levels have multiple stages. Uh oh.

• SPECTACULAR SPELLS! - Blizzards, Hot Chilis, Golden Ducks and other outrageous spells give you an added advantage against those swindling swine. And when you need some serious help, guess who’s at hand to make a pork-smashing cameo? That’s right, it’s the sardine loving Mighty Eagle. Oh yeah!

• CHALLENGE OTHER PLAYERS! - Challenge players from across the world in the Arena to see who’s the most hardcore bird flinger of them all. Play new tournaments every day, earn feathers to level up your birds and face off against the toughest competition on the planet. Game face!

• DEFEAT BOSS PIGGIES! - There’s some serious bad guys on Piggy Island, and your slingshot skills are needed to take them down. Foreman Pig, Chef Pig and the infamous King Pig will stop at nothing to keep your eggs. Are you gonna let ‘em get away with that? It’s time to teach the pork a lesson.

While the game is free to download and play, be aware that Angry Birds 2 also contains in-game purchases. You can check it out on the Google Play Store now or download Angry Birds 2 APK file from the source link below.

Get your hands on Android Studio 1.3

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Previewed earlier this summer at Google I/O, Android Studio 1.3 is now available on the stable release channel. We appreciated the early feedback from those developers on our canary and beta channels to help ship a great product.

Android Studio 1.3 is our biggest feature release for the year so far, which includes a new memory profiler, improved testing support, and full editing and debugging support for C++. Let’s take a closer look.

New Features in Android Studio 1.3

Performance & Testing Tools

• Android Memory (HPROF) Viewer
  

  Android Studio now allows you to capture and analyze memory snapshots in the native Android HPROF format.

• Allocation Tracker
  

  In addition to displaying a table of memory allocations that your app uses, the updated allocation tracker now includes a visual way to view the your app allocations.

• APK Tests in Modules
  

  For more flexibility in app testing, you now have the option to place your code tests in a separate module and use the new test plugin (‘com.android.test’) instead of keeping your tests right next to your app code. This feature does require your app project to use the Gradle Plugin 1.3.

Code and SDK Management

• App permission annotations
  

  Android Studio now has inline code annotation support to help you manage the new app permissions model in the M release of Android. Learn more about code annotations.

• Data Binding Support
  

  New data brinding features allow you to create declarative layouts in order to minimize boilerplate code by binding your application logic into your layouts. Learn more about data binding.

• SDK Auto Update & SDK Manager
  

  Managing Android SDK updates is now a part of the Android Studio. By default, Android Studio will now prompt you about new SDK & Tool updates. You can still adjust your preferences with the new & integrated Android SDK Manager.

• C++ Support
  

  As a part of the Android 1.3 stable release, we included an Early Access Preview of the C++ editor & debugger support paired with an experimental build plugin. See the Android C++ Preview page for information on how to get started. Support for more complex projects and build configurations is in development, but let us know your feedback.

Time to Update

An important thing to remember is that an update to Android Studio does not require you to change your Android app projects. With updating, you get the latest features but still have control of which build tools and app dependency versions you want to use for your Android app.

For current developers on Android Studio, you can check for updates from the navigation menu. For new users, you can learn more about Android Studio on the product overview page or download the stable version from the Android Studio download site.

We are excited to launch this set of features in Android Studio and we are hard at work developing the next set of tools to make develop Android development easier on Android Studio. As always we welcome feedback on how we can help you. Connect with the Android developer tools team on Google+.

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Iterate faster on Google Play with improved beta testing

Posted by Ellie Powers, Product Manager, Google Play

Today, Google Play is making it easier for you to manage beta tests and get your users to join them. Since we launched beta testing two years ago, developers have told us that it’s become a critical part of their workflow in testing ideas, gathering rapid feedback, and improving their apps. In fact, we’ve found that 80 percent of developers with popular apps routinely run beta tests as part of their workflow.

Improvements to managing a beta test in the Developer Console

Currently, the Google Play Developer Console lets developers release early versions of their app to selected users as an alpha or beta test before pushing updates to full production. The select user group downloads the app on Google Play as normal, but can’t review or rate it on the store. This gives you time to address bugs and other issues without negatively impacting your app listing.

Based on your feedback, we’re launching new features to more effectively manage your beta tests, and enable users to join with one click.

• 
  ^NEW! Open beta – Use an open beta when you want any user who has the link to be able to join your beta with just one click. One of the advantages of an open beta is that it allows you to scale to a large number of testers. However, you can also limit the maximum number of users who can join.



• ^NEW! Closed beta using email addresses – If you want to restrict which users can access your beta, you have a new option: you can now set up a closed beta using lists of individual email addresses which you can add individually or upload as a .csv file. These users will be able to join your beta via a one-click opt-in link.



• Closed beta with Google+ community or Google Group – This is the option that you’ve been using today, and you can continue to use betas with Google+ communities or Google Groups. You will also be able to move to an open beta while maintaining your existing testers.

How developers are finding success with beta testing

Beta testing is one of the fast iteration features of Google Play and Android that help drive success for developers like Wooga, the creators of hit games Diamond Dash, Jelly Splash, and Agent Alice. Find out more about how Wooga iterates on Android first from Sebastian Kriese, Head of Partnerships, and Pal Tamas Feher, Head of Engineering.

Kabam is a global leader in AAA quality mobile games developed in partnership with Hollywood studios for such franchises such as Fast & Furious, Marvel, Star Wars and The Hobbit. Beta testing helps Kabam engineers perfect the gameplay for Android devices before launch. “The ability to receive pointed feedback and rapidly reiterate via alpha/beta testing on Google Play has been extremely beneficial to our worldwide launches,” said Kabam VP Rob Oshima.

Matt Small, Co-Founder of Vector Unit recently told us how they’ve been using beta testing extensively to improve Beach Buggy Racing and uncover issues they may not have found otherwise. You can read Matt’s blog post about beta testing on Google Play on Gamasutra to hear about their experience. We’ve picked a few of Matt’s tips and shared them below:

1. Limit more sensitive builds to a closed beta where you invite individual testers via email addresses. Once glaring problems are ironed out, publish your app to an open beta to gather feedback from a wider audience before going to production.


2. Set expectations early. Let users know about the risks of beta testing (e.g. the software may not be stable) and tell them what you’re looking for in their feedback.


3. Encourage critical feedback. Thank people when their criticisms are thoughtful and clearly explained and try to steer less-helpful feedback in a more productive direction.


4. Respond quickly. The more people see actual responses from the game developer, the more encouraged they are to participate.


5. Enable Google Play game services. To let testers access features like Achievements and Leaderboards before they are published, go into the Google Play game services testing panel and enable them.

We hope this update to beta testing makes it easier for you to test your app and gather valuable feedback and that these tips help you conduct successful tests. Visit the Developer Console Help Center to find out more about setting up beta testing for your app.

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Auto Backup for Apps made simple

Posted by Wojtek Kaliciński, Developer Advocate, Android

Auto Backup for Apps makes seamless app data backup and restore possible with zero lines of application code. This feature will be available on Android devices running the upcoming M release. All you need to do to enable it for your app is update the targetSdkVersion to 23. You can test it now on the M Developer Preview, where we’ve enabled Auto Backup for all apps regardless of targetSdkVersion.

Auto Backup for Apps is provided by Google to both users and developers at no charge. Even better, the backup data stored in Google Drive does not count against the user's quota. Please note that data transferred may still incur charges from the user's cellular / internet provider.

What is Auto-Backup for Apps?

By default, for users that have opted in to backup, all of the data files of an app are automatically copied out to a user’s Drive. That includes databases, shared preferences and other content in the application’s private directory, up to a limit of 25 megabytes per app. Any data residing in the locations denoted by Context.getCacheDir(), Context.getCodeCacheDir() and Context.getNoBackupFilesDir() is excluded from backup. As for files on external storage, only those in Context.getExternalFilesDir() are backed up.

How to control what is backed up

You can customize what app data is available for backup by creating a backup configuration file in the res/xml folder and referencing it in your app’s manifest:

        android:fullBackupContent="@xml/mybackupscheme">

In the configuration file, specify or rules that you need to fine tune the behavior of the default backup agent. Please refer to a detailed explanation of the rules syntax available in the documentation.

What to exclude from backup

You may not want to have certain app data eligible for backup. For such data, please use one of the mechanisms above. For example:

• You must exclude any device specific identifiers, either issued by a server or generated on the device. This includes the Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) registration token which, when restored to another device, can render your app on that device unable to receive GCM messages.



• Consider excluding account credentials or other sensitive information information, e.g., by asking the user to reauthenticate the first time they launch a restored app rather than allowing for storage of such information in the backup.

With such a diverse landscape of apps, it’s important that developers consider how to maximise the benefits to the user of automatic backups. The goal is to reduce the friction of setting up a new device, which in most cases means transferring over user preferences and locally saved content.

For example, if you have the user’s account stored in shared preferences such that it can be restored on install, they won’t have to even think about which account they used to sign in with previously - they can submit their password and get going!

If you support a variety of log-ins (Google Sign-In and other providers, username/password), it’s simple to keep track of which log-in method was used previously so the user doesn’t have to.

Transitioning from key/value backups

If you have previously implemented the legacy, key/value backup by subclassing BackupAgent and setting it in your Manifest (android:backupAgent), you’re just one step away from transitioning to full-data backups. Simply add the android:fullBackupOnly="true" attribute on . This is ignored on pre-M versions of Android, meaning onBackup/onRestore will still be called, while on M+ devices it lets the system know you wish to use full-data backups while still providing your own BackupAgent.

You can use the same approach even if you’re not using key/value backups, but want to do any custom processing in onCreate(), onFullBackup() or be notified when a restore operation happens in onRestoreFinished(). Just remember to call super.onFullBackup() if you want to retain the system implementation of XML include/exclude rules handling.

What is the backup/restore lifecycle?

The data restore happens as part of the package installation, before the user has a chance to launch your app. Backup runs at most once a day, when your device is charging and connected to Wi-Fi. If your app exceeds the data limit (currently set at 25 MB), no more backups will take place and the last saved snapshot will be used for subsequent restores. Your app’s process is killed after a full backup happens and before a restore if you invoke it manually through the bmgr command (more about that below).

Test your apps now

Before you begin testing Auto Backup, make sure you have the latest M Developer Preview on your device or emulator. After you’ve installed your APK, use the adb shell command to access the bmgr tool.

Bmgr is a tool you can use to interact with the Backup Manager:

• bmgr run schedules an immediate backup pass; you need to run this command once after installing your app on the device so that the Backup Manager has a chance to initialize properly


• bmgr fullbackup starts a full-data backup operation.


• bmgr restore restores previously backed up data

If you forget to invoke bmgr run, you might see errors in Logcat when trying the fullbackup and restore commands. If you are still having problems, make sure you have Backup enabled and a Google account set up in system Settings -> Backup & reset.

Learn more

You can find a sample application that shows how to use Auto Backup on our GitHub. The full documentation is available on developer.android.com

Join the Android M Developer Preview Community on Google+ for more information on Android M features and remember to report any bugs you find with Auto Backup in the bug tracker.

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[New eBook] Download The No-nonsense Guide to App Growth

Originally posted on the AdMob Blog.

What’s the secret to rapid growth for your app?

Play Store or App Store optimization? A sophisticated paid advertising strategy? A viral social media campaign?

While all of these strategies could help you grow your user base, the foundation for rapid growth is much more basic and fundamental—you need an engaging app.

This handbook will walk you through practical ways to increase your app’s user engagement to help you eventually transition to growth. You’ll learn how to:

• Pick the right metric to represent user engagement


• Look at data to audit your app and find areas to fix


• Promote your app after you’ve reached a healthy level of user engagement

Download a free copy here.

For more tips on app monetization, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter and Google+ pages.

Posted by Raj Ajrawat, Product Specialist, AdMob

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Brain Dots 1.1.4 APK

New puzzle game Brain Dots is now available for both Android and iOS. The game is available in both the App Store and on Google Play. It can be used on smartphones or tablets for free to play. While the game is free to download and play, be aware that it also contains in-game purchases. Skip to the bottom of this article for a direct link to download Brain Dots APK.

Brain Dots Android Game Overview

Brain Dots is a puzzle game by Translimit, the developer of the successful Brain Wars. The game lets you draw lines and bump balls from your smartphone. The only thing you need to do is to “bump two balls". You are starting off with a simple pencil, moving onto color pencils, crayons and so on. There are 25 varieties of pens of different colors and sizes you can use to do it. Download and play, collect various pens and walk through the stages!

Brain Dots, continuing after Brain Wars, will test your logical thinking and the flexibility of your mind. As this game includes the elements of riddle and “Escape the Room” type of games, if you enjoy brain-type puzzles, cards, and strategy games then Brain Dots is for you. It might also have an impact on your children’s intellectual growth and preventing brain deterioration?

Download Brain Dots APK

Brain Dots Android game has been updated on the Google Play Store with bugs fixed. Now, you can choose to get or not, when showing the clues to clear the stage to play on Android phone and tablet. If Brain Dots is installed on your Android device, you can download and install Brain Dots 1.1.4 by visiting the Google Play Store and tapping on "Update" button. As always you can also install the update by downloading the latest version of Brain Dots APK file from the direct link given below.

Have you downloaded and install Brain Dots yet? What are your thoughts about this Brain game? Please leave a comment about it!

Alphabear APK

Alphabear APK version 01.02.00 is now available for download and install. The game has been updated on the Google Play Store brings the ability to navigate back and forth between chapters that you have unlocked. There is also some of the most frequently-requested proper nouns to the game's dictionary, such as days of the week and calendar months to play on Android phone and tablet. Skip to the bottom of this article for a direct link to the new Alphabear APK file.

Alphabear Android Game Overview

Alphabear is an original word puzzle game by Spry Fox, the developer of the award winning game Triple Town. The game lets you spell words by selecting letters on a grid. You have to use letters that are adjacent to each other then bears appear! The more letters you use, the bigger the bear gets, and the more points you earn!

An excellent blend of Boggle and Scrabble in a challenging solo game. Great for casual play or binge playing. It seems like a child's game at first glance, but this app is not only entertaining, it is beautifully done! If you like word games, this game is for you.

Alphabear has daily challenges, collecting cute bears, and interestingly different gameplay. Challenging but easy enough to play and progress. If you're looking for an accessible word game because some of the others are intimidating, this should win you over. With new features, minor improvements and bug fixes, the latest version has really improved this puzzle game.

Alphabear APK update

Alphabear is available for iOS and Android. For Android platform, this word puzzle game is available for free to play with offers in-app purchases to buy game items. Grab now the latest version in the Google Play Store or try the game out for the first time.

You can download Alphabear APK from the direct link given above and then install it on your Android phone and tablet.

Lighting the way with BLE beacons

Originally posted on the Google Developers blog.

Posted by Chandu Thota, Engineering Director and Matthew Kulick, Product Manager

Just like lighthouses have helped sailors navigate the world for thousands of years, electronic beacons can be used to provide precise location and contextual cues within apps to help you navigate the world. For instance, a beacon can label a bus stop so your phone knows to have your ticket ready, or a museum app can provide background on the exhibit you’re standing in front of. Today, we’re beginning to roll out a new set of features to help developers build apps using this technology. This includes a new open format for Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons to communicate with people’s devices, a way for you to add this meaningful data to your apps and to Google services, as well as a way to manage your fleet of beacons efficiently.

Eddystone: an open BLE beacon format

Working closely with partners in the BLE beacon industry, we’ve learned a lot about the needs and the limitations of existing beacon technology. So we set out to build a new class of beacons that addresses real-life use-cases, cross-platform support, and security.

At the core of what it means to be a BLE beacon is the frame format—i.e., a language—that a beacon sends out into the world. Today, we’re expanding the range of use cases for beacon technology by publishing a new and open format for BLE beacons that anyone can use: Eddystone. Eddystone is robust and extensible: It supports multiple frame types for different use cases, and it supports versioning to make introducing new functionality easier. It’s cross-platform, capable of supporting Android, iOS or any platform that supports BLE beacons. And it’s available on GitHub under the open-source Apache v2.0 license, for everyone to use and help improve.

By design, a beacon is meant to be discoverable by any nearby Bluetooth Smart device, via its identifier which is a public signal. At the same time, privacy and security are really important, so we built in a feature called Ephemeral Identifiers (EIDs) which change frequently, and allow only authorized clients to decode them. EIDs will enable you to securely do things like find your luggage once you get off the plane or find your lost keys. We’ll publish the technical specs of this design soon.

Eddystone for developers: Better context for your apps

Eddystone offers two key developer benefits: better semantic context and precise location. To support these, we’re launching two new APIs. The Nearby API for Android and iOS makes it easier for apps to find and communicate with nearby devices and beacons, such as a specific bus stop or a particular art exhibit in a museum, providing better context. And the Proximity Beacon API lets developers associate semantic location (i.e., a place associated with a lat/long) and related data with beacons, stored in the cloud. This API will also be used in existing location APIs, such as the next version of the Places API.

Eddystone for beacon manufacturers: Single hardware for multiple platforms

Eddystone’s extensible frame formats allow hardware manufacturers to support multiple mobile platforms and application scenarios with a single piece of hardware. An existing BLE beacon can be made Eddystone compliant with a simple firmware update. At the core, we built Eddystone as an open and extensible protocol that’s also interoperable, so we’ll also introduce an Eddystone certification process in the near future by closely working with hardware manufacturing partners. We already have a number of partners that have built Eddystone-compliant beacons.

Eddystone for businesses: Secure and manage your beacon fleet with ease

As businesses move from validating their beacon-assisted apps to deploying beacons at scale in places like stadiums and transit stations, hardware installation and maintenance can be challenging: which beacons are working, broken, missing or displaced? So starting today, beacons that implement Eddystone’s telemetry frame (Eddystone-TLM) in combination with the Proximity Beacon API’s diagnostic endpoint can help deployers monitor their beacons’ battery health and displacement—common logistical challenges with low-cost beacon hardware.

Eddystone for Google products: New, improved user experiences

We’re also starting to improve Google’s own products and services with beacons. Google Maps launched beacon-based transit notifications in Portland earlier this year, to help people get faster access to real-time transit schedules for specific stations. And soon, Google Now will also be able to use this contextual information to help prioritize the most relevant cards, like showing you menu items when you’re inside a restaurant.

We want to make beacons useful even when a mobile app is not available; to that end, the Physical Web project will be using Eddystone beacons that broadcast URLs to help people interact with their surroundings.

Beacons are an important way to deliver better experiences for users of your apps, whether you choose to use Eddystone with your own products and services or as part of a broader Google solution like the Places API or Nearby API. The ecosystem of app developers and beacon manufacturers is important in pushing these technologies forward and the best ideas won’t come from just one company, so we encourage you to get some Eddystone-supported beacons today from our partners and begin building!

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Connect With the World Around You Through Nearby APIs

Originally posted on the Google Developers blog.

Posted by Akshay Kannan, Product Manager

Mobile phones have made it easy to communicate with anyone, whether they’re right next to you or on the other side of the world. The great irony, however, is that those interactions can often feel really awkward when you're sitting right next to someone.

Today, it takes several steps -- whether it’s exchanging contact information, scanning a QR code, or pairing via bluetooth -- to get a simple piece of information to someone right next to you. Ideally, you should be able to just turn to them and do so, the same way you do in the real world.

This is why we built Nearby. Nearby provides a proximity API, Nearby Messages, for iOS and Android devices to discover and communicate with each other, as well as with beacons.

Nearby uses a combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and inaudible sound (using the device’s speaker and microphone) to establish proximity. We’ve incorporated Nearby technology into several products, including Chromecast Guest Mode, Nearby Players in Google Play Games, and Google Tone.

With the latest release of Google Play services 7.8, the Nearby Messages API becomes available to all developers across iOS and Android devices (Gingerbread and higher). Nearby doesn’t use or require a Google Account. The first time an app calls Nearby, users get a permission dialog to grant that app access.

A few of our partners have built creative experiences to show what's possible with Nearby.

Edjing Pro uses Nearby to let DJs publish their tracklist to people around them. The audience can vote on tracks that they like, and their votes are updated in realtime.

Trello uses Nearby to simplify sharing. Share a Trello board to the people around you with a tap of a button.

Pocket Casts uses Nearby to let you find and compare podcasts with people around you. Open the Nearby tab in Pocket Casts to view a list of podcasts that people around you have, as well as podcasts that you have in common with others.

Trulia uses Nearby to simplify the house hunting process. Create a board and use Nearby to make it easy for the people around you to join it.

To learn more, visit developers.google.com/nearby?utm_campaign=nearby-api-714&utm_source=dac&utm_medium=blog.

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Agar.io APK

Miniclip.com has released its popular online smash hit web game Agar.io for mobile in the Google Play Store and App Store. Well, the game is now available for free to play on Android and iOS. As always, we have the latest APK file for you to download directly and install on your Android phone and tablet. The game is available for free to play, skip to the bottom of this article for a download link to the Agar.io APK file.

Agar.io is a browser-based frenzy that is sweeping the globe. The game was a big success on the web platform and now optimized for touch screens phone and tablet. It's about an action where you have to gobble everyone up, and become the largest cell in the Agar universe, evading the bigger guys, and chasing the small fish.

Agar.io for the mobile device comes with new controls developed especially for touchscreens and still offers the same addictive gameplay that millions have already enjoyed on PC. You can play online in free-for-all action and use splitting, shrinking and dodging tactics to catch other players - or avoid them from your Android and iOS device. Let's play use a variety of special secret skins with the right username and become the biggest cell in the game!

Works way better than all the other dot game out there, Agar.io quickly turns into a casual and very easy to play. All of this and more is available now for download on the market. For Android, you can grab the latest version from the Google Play Store. So, it’s a good idea to have a look and see if yours is ready. And check via the link at the bottom of the post to download directly Agar.io 1.0.4 APK.

Have you just downloaded? What do you think of this newly released update and do you like the changes Miniclip.com has made to its web game come for mobile?

M Developer Preview Gets Its First Update

By Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Earlier this summer at Google I/O, we launched the M Developer Preview. The developer preview is an early access opportunity to test and optimize your apps for the next release of Android. Today we are releasing an update to the M Developer Preview that includes fixes and updates based on your feedback.

What’s New

The Developer Preview 2 update includes the up to date M release platform code, and near-final APIs for you to validate your app. To provide more testing support, we have refined the Nexus system images and emulator system images with the Android platform updates. In addition to platform updates, the system images also include Google Play services 7.6.

How to Get the Update

If you are already running the M developer preview launched at Google I/O (Build #MPZ44Q) on a supported Nexus device (e.g. Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, or Nexus Player), the update can be delivered to your device via an over-the-air update. We expect all devices currently on the developer preview to receive the update over the next few days. We also posted a new version of the preview system image on the developer preview website. (To view the preview website in a language other than English, select the appropriate language from the language selector at the bottom of the page).

For those developers using the emulator, you can update your M preview system images via the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

What are the Major Changes?

We have addressed many issues brought up during the first phase of the developer preview. Check out the release notes for a detailed list of changes in this update. Some of the highlights to the update include:

• Android Platform Changes:
  
  
  
  • Modifications to platform permissions including external storage, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth location, and changes to contacts/identity permissions. Device connections through the USB port are now set to charge-only mode by default. To access the device, users must explicitly grant permission.
  
  
  
  


• API Changes:
  
  
  
  • Updated Bluetooth Stylus APIs with updated callback events. View.onContextClickListener and GestureDetector.OnContextClickListener to listen for stylus button presses and to perform secondary actions.
    
  • Updated Media API with new callback InputDevice.hasMicrophone() method for determining if a device microphone exists.
  
  
  
  


• Fixes for developer-reported issues:
  
  
  
  • TextInputLayout doesn't set hint for embedded EditText. (fixed issue)
  
  
  • Camera Permission issue with Legacy Apps (fixed issue)
  
  
  
  

Next Steps

With the final M release still on schedule for this fall, the platform features and API are near final. However, there is still time to report critical issues as you continue to test and validate your apps on the M Developer Preview. You can also visit our M Developer Preview community to share ideas and information.

Thanks again for your support. We look forward to seeing your apps that are ready to go for the M release this fall.

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The App Developer Business Kit: Now available in 10 languages

Posted by Sean Meng, a Product Marketing Manager on the AdMob team

Today we’re excited to launch The App Developer Business Kit in 10 more languages. The website includes tips for new app developers on building, promoting and monetizing your app. Check out the Business Kit in your language:

• French


• German


• Italian


• Japanese


• Korean


• Portuguese


• Simplified Chinese


• Traditional Chinese


• Spanish


• British English

To help you make decisions about growing your app business in other regions, we’ve added 6 new market reports providing great insights about app users in Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil, France, and Russia. Did you know that Brazilian smartphone users engage with ads more frequently than users in the US and Japan? Or that while nearly 2/3rds of French users exclusively download free apps, only 31% of Brazilian smartphone users do? Check out statistics like these about exciting regions around the world here.

Stay connected on all things mobile apps by following us on Google+ and Twitter.

Vainglory Release APK Download

Super Evil Megacorp has released mobile MOBA Vainglory in the Google Play Store. As always, we have the latest APK file for you to download directly and install it on your Android phone and tablet. The game is available for free to play, skip to the bottom of this article for a download link to the APK file.

Vainglory is popular MOBA game that optimized for touch screens phone and tablet, it was a big success on iOS platform. It's about a strategy where you have to control a hero of your choice as part of a 3-man team tasked with destroying a crystal at the enemy team's base. Along the way, you can upgrade your heroes as your team clashes in real-time battles with the opposition. The game itself features fluid graphics and fun to play MOBA perfected for touch.

Below are the details of the features in the new update for Vainglory Release on Android:
NEW BERSERKER HERO: RONA!
GET CARD PACKS
-ICE BOX: Unlock a four-pack of cards using ICE you've purchased. Features different heroes and themes over time.
-You can peek in a box before you unlock cards! Use the cards you get to unlock skin tiers.
-GLORY BOX: Unlock a four-pack of cards using the Glory you've earned. Available cards change over time.
CASUAL & RANKED QUEUES
- Play for fun or skill-tier prestige
NEW PROFILE SECTION & MUCH MORE
Check News in-game for balance changes & bug fixes.

All of this and more is available now for download on the market. For Android, you can grab the latest version from the Android market. So, it’s a good idea to have a look and see if yours is ready. And check via the link at the bottom of the post to download directly Vainglory APK.

Have you just downloaded? What do you think of this newly released update and do you like the changes Super Evil Megacorp has made to its Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game with new card packs and hero?

Game Performance: Data-Oriented Programming

Posted by Shanee Nishry, Game Developer Advocate

To improve game performance, we’d like to highlight a programming paradigm that will help you maximize your CPU potential, make your game more efficient, and code smarter.

Before we get into detail of data-oriented programming, let’s explain the problems it solves and common pitfalls for programmers.

Memory

The first thing a programmer must understand is that memory is slow and the way you code affects how efficiently it is utilized. Inefficient memory layout and order of operations forces the CPU idle waiting for memory so it can proceed doing work.

The easiest way to demonstrate is by using an example. Take this simple code for instance:

char data[1000000]; // One Million bytes
unsigned int sum = 0;

for ( int i = 0; i < 1000000; ++i )
{
  sum += data[ i ];
}

An array of one million bytes is declared and iterated on one byte at a time. Now let's change things a little to illustrate the underlying hardware. Changes marked in bold:

char data[16000000]; // Sixteen Million bytes
unsigned int sum = 0;

for ( int i = 0; i < 16000000; i += 16 )
{
  sum += data[ i ];
}

The array is changed to contain sixteen million bytes and we iterate over one million of them, skipping 16 at a time.

A quick look suggests there shouldn't be any effect on performance as the code is translated to the same number of instructions and runs the same number of times, however that is not the case. Here is the difference graph. Note that this is on a logarithmic scale--if the scale were linear, the performance difference would be too large to display on any reasonably-sized graph!

Graph in logarithmic scale

The simple change making the loop skip 16 bytes at a time makes the program run 5 times slower!

The average difference in performance is 5x and is consistent when iterating 1,000 bytes up to a million bytes, sometimes increasing up to 7x. This is a serious change in performance.

Note: The benchmark was run on multiple hardware configurations including a desktop with Intel 5930K 3.50GHz CPU, a Macbook Pro Retina laptop with 2.6 GHz Intel i7 CPU and Android Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 devices. The results were pretty consistent.

If you wish to replicate the test, you might have to ensure the memory is out of the cache before running the loop because some compilers will cache the array on declaration. Read below to understand more on how it works.

Explanation

What happens in the example is quite simply explained when you understand how the CPU accesses data. The CPU can’t access data in RAM; the data must be copied to the cache, a smaller but extremely fast memory line which resides near the CPU chip.

When the program starts, the CPU is set to run an instruction on part of the array but that data is still not in the cache, therefore causing a cache miss and forcing the CPU to wait for the data to be copied into the cache.

For simplicity sake, assume a cache size of 16 bytes for the L1 cache line, this means 16 bytes will be copied starting from the requested address for the instruction.

In the first code example, the program next tries to operate on the following byte, which is already copied into the cache following the initial cache miss, therefore continuing smoothly. This is also true for the next 14 bytes. After 16 bytes, since the first cache miss the loop, will encounter another cache miss and the CPU will again wait for data to operate on, copying the next 16 bytes into the cache.

In the second code sample, the loop skips 16 bytes at a time but hardware continues to operate the same. The cache copies the 16 subsequent bytes each time it encounters a cache miss which means the loop will trigger a cache miss with each iteration and cause the CPU to wait idle for data each time!

Note: Modern hardware implements cache prefetch algorithms to prevent incurring a cache miss per frame, but even with prefetching, more bandwidth is used and performance is lower in our example test.

In reality the cache lines tend to be larger than 16 bytes, the program would run much slower if it were to wait for data at every iteration. A Krait-400 found in the Nexus 5 has a L0 data cache of 4 KB with 64 Bytes per line.

If you are wondering why cache lines are so small, the main reason is that making fast memory is expensive.

Data-Oriented Design

The way to solve such performance issues is by designing your data to fit into the cache and have the program to operate on the entire data continuously.

This can be done by organizing your game objects inside Structures of Arrays (SoA) instead of Arrays of Structures (AoS) and pre-allocating enough memory to contain the expected data.

For example, a simple physics object in an AoS layout might look like this:

struct PhysicsObject
{
  Vec3 mPosition;
  Vec3 mVelocity;

  float mMass;
  float mDrag;
  Vec3 mCenterOfMass;

  Vec3 mRotation;
  Vec3 mAngularVelocity;

  float mAngularDrag;
};

This is a common way way to present an object in C++.

On the other hand, using SoA layout looks more like this:

class PhysicsSystem
{
private:
  size_t mNumObjects;
  std::vector< Vec3 > mPositions;
  std::vector< Vec3 > mVelocities;
  std::vector< float > mMasses;
  std::vector< float > mDrags;

  // ...
};

Let’s compare how a simple function to update object positions by their velocity would operate.

For the AoS layout, a function would look like this:

void UpdatePositions( PhysicsObject* objects, const size_t num_objects, const float delta_time )
{
  for ( int i = 0; i < num_objects; ++i )
  {
    objects[i].mPosition += objects[i].mVelocity * delta_time;
  }
}

The PhysicsObject is loaded into the cache but only the first 2 variables are used. Being 12 bytes each amounts to 24 bytes of the cache line being utilised per iteration and causing a cache miss with every object on a 64 bytes cache line of a Nexus 5.

Now let’s look at the SoA way. This is our iteration code:

void PhysicsSystem::SimulateObjects( const float delta_time )
{
  for ( int i = 0; i < mNumObjects; ++i )
  {
    mPositions[ i ] += mVelocities[i] * delta_time;
  }
}

With this code, we immediately cause 2 cache misses, but we are then able to run smoothly for about 5.3 iterations before causing the next 2 cache misses resulting in a significant performance increase!

The way data is sent to the hardware matters. Be aware of data-oriented design and look for places it will perform better than object-oriented code.

We have barely scratched the surface. There is still more to data-oriented programming than structuring your objects. For example, the cache is used for storing instructions and function memory so optimizing your functions and local variables affects cache misses and hits. We also did not mention the L2 cache and how data-oriented design makes your application easier to multithread.

Make sure to profile your code to find out where you might want to implement data-oriented design. You can use different profilers for different architecture, including the NVIDIA Tegra System Profiler, ARM Streamline Performance Analyzer, Intel and PowerVR PVRMonitor.

If you want to learn more on how to optimize for your cache, read on cache prefetching for various CPU architectures.

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+Android Developers

Clash of Kings 1.0.97 APK Download

Elex Wireless has announced the release of a new update for Clash of Kings. The new update that will see the game getting a new Alliance Building: Alliance Turret, new Building: House of brotherhood and start Lavender Event to play on your mobile device. As always, we have the latest APK file for you to download directly and install it on your Android phone and tablet.

Clash of Kings is a freemium strategy game for phone and tablet that lets you battle to build an empire and control 7 fantasy kingdoms. In these battle games, you have to build massive empires and clash with enemies. Build armies, research goods, attack enemies, and gather resources then against friends and enemies from all over the world to become the most powerful player. If you like PVP games or multiplayers, you’ll love this base building, fighting army game where you must conquer kingdoms to survive!

Below are the details of the features in the new update for Clash of Kings 1.0.97:
New Alliance Building: Alliance Turret
-The Alliance Turret can be built within Alliance Territory
-When alliance members within alliance territory are being attacked, Alliance Turret will attack the enemies within range
New Building: House of brotherhood
-Invitation function can be used in the building
Lavender Event begins
Other Optimization
-Added Equipment Power, you can view it from the lord details interface

How many of you play the game routinely? All of this and more is available now for download on the market. For Android, you can grab the latest version from the Google Play Store. So, it’s a good idea to have a look and see if yours is ready. And check via the link at the bottom of the post to download directly Clash of Kings 1.0.97 APK.

Have you just downloaded? What do you think of this newly released update and do you like the changes Elex Wireless has made to its mobile strategy game with new Alliance Building and Lavender Event?